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Preface Data Privacy and protection are gaining attention wordwide. In line of the same trend, the European Union, has introduces a new framework to safeguard data and privacy for its citizens. The same is termed as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It supersedes the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and will be applicable form 25th May,

Freelance Foundation – non-profit for freelancers organized its 3rd International International Conference for Freelancers called Wordcon. Event Report of Wordcon17/18 – 3rd International Conference of Freelancers The Park, 9th February 2018, Calcutta, India The Heritage and Mission of Wordcon Wordcon is a movement, born in Bengal, India but belongs to the world. The Vitruvian Man

“Wordcon 2018”, 3rd International Conference by Freelance Foundation took place last Friday (9th February, 2018) at the Park, Kolkata. The first one was in Jameson Inn in 2015 followed by 2nd one in 2017 at Sonnet, Saltlake. In these three years, the journey was not only exciting, but also evolved lot many opportunities, ideas and

“Greeks, the inventor of Olympic games considered Sports as something sacred and also an avenue practicing Virtue. Britons, inventor of Modern Cricket, also considered in their finest hour this as not mere Game but something of character building and connected with moral virtue. A British father did say to his young son while he was

Year 2017 has passed and we have landed into 2018. With best wishes of the New Year, let us try for few simple resolutions collectively and make our lives more meaningful. I have listed few pointers as it came to my mind: 1. Let’s build, ratain and carry forward Human Connections. This only matters, not

In about 48hours we are about to bid adieu to the ongoing year 2017. Before you are flooded with messages, wishes and carried away with celebrations in welcoming new year 2018, I thought of spreading my lesson as I have learnt through life. I had started writing seriously in the year 2014 through this English

[Disclaimer : We had the opportunity of reviewing the previous works of the author. Those were all in the story form. This is different – this is a survey of something which is beyond survey, not for its vastness alone but for the subject matter itself. In 240 pages, the author has attempted and attempted

Preface Winter in Kolkata has different charming flairs and “InfoSec Global” added a new feather in her cap through a mega InfoSec Summit since last year. This year “InfoSec Global 2017”, the international InfoSec summit took place at The Park, Kolkata on 3rd November, 2017 Even though there is a lot of buzz around Cyber

Off-Break brings a cricket match – invitation to the Great Outdoor where once when we were younger and not surrounded by power-point, EMI, RoI, cash-flow, deadline, off-track, project management. In those days, we played and the game was the end of it. But those games helped us in becoming – becoming eligible to deserve the

[ A more formal and rigorous version of the methodology described below is submitted to the International Journal of Event Management Research, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Australia] EMPIRICAL MATHEMATICAL FORMULATION A very important question for a sponsor for a Conference is to have a measure of RoO (Return on Outcomes) and RoI (Return on Investment). It

For a tropical climate like ours, here in Calcutta (India), from March to October, afternoon sleep appears to have therapeutic effect and productivity amplifier. This tradition is now completely forgotten although our last colonial rulers with their capital in my adopted city honoured this tradition. The first wave of British people in Calcutta left vivid

When electricity was first discovered, literature of that time was rife with wonder, anxiety and fear. It was slowly found out that although electricity changed the world forever. It was the first invention / discovery in human recorded history that conquered night. Later distance was conquered. We are living in the age of information security

[ This post is a Wordcon contribution to the Freelance Ecosystem of India. This is not a tutorial for GST nor written by Tax professional. It is a synthetic analysis of the situation with analytic part coming in the next post. Some excepts are taken from the book entitled – LICENSE, TAX, REGULATION – a HANDBOOK FOR

Infosec Foundation – a non-profit for spreading Information security awareness is holding its first edition of Infovision – CIO round Table – a meet of top CIOs to discuss, debate, reflect, share notes and best practices. Wordsmith Communication and Wordsmith University are associates in the movement spearheaded by Infosec Foundation. This is part of Infosec Foundation’s

Invocation : I read the novel for the first somewhere in 1996 when I was a carefree young man in Malabar. I have two qualification to write this “Revisit” – primary one being of love for this epic and secondary for being a translator for last twenty years with interruptions in the form of job, marriage,

“My dear Watson, big news from the Deccan – Mr. Sikka – a great technical man taught by our American colonists in Stanford and then he was head of technology of a renowened firm in neighboring Germany. He then went to a city in the Deccan, famed earlier for very moderate climate in the wild

How did I watch the movie ? It is important as I am no professional reviewer. The idea to watch the movie struck my mind at 10 am in the morning. I watched the movie at 11 am in an almost empty theatre in Calcutta. I advised my “business and personal network” that I am

This post will try to answer two questions that you might have asked. If you think these are non-questions, do not waste time. This post is not for you. This post will help you if you are an entrepreneur or interested to start a business. This will provide a clue as how to de-risk your

Preface Sarahah is a website created by the developer from Saudi Arabia Zain al-Abidin Tawfiq. Sarahah means candor and honesty. It has become very popular in very short time because it allows you to send messages anonymously. After registration, you got a link which you can share your friends or post it publicly. Any person can send anonymous

I have a friend, a business owner who attends or at least tries to attend most of the business conferences / conclaves / meet / summit / workshop in the city. I have always wondered at his energy and drive. In this narrow domain, he exemplifies the command in the Bhagawad-Gita : “To work, you

“For those who understand what is a customer, no training is needed. Those who do not understand, no training is sufficient.” Rains of Bengal is at the root of her immense fertility. This is also the season when she becomes fatal in terms of water-borne diseases. I became victim and suffered for almost a week,

“What was the old age?” “Who is your favorite friend?” “How many lovers you have?” “Which celebrity looks alike you?” “Who will kill you?” Do you feel you have heard these questions several times in recent past? Yes you are right. This are the questions and answers generate by a Fun App Named “Testony” (https://en.testony.com/

Preface Trust you have already heard about the death game named ‘Blue Whale Challenge’. The same is in news in India post the suicide incident of a Kid in Mumbai, India. The “Suicide Game” involves 50 twisted tasks before taking your own life to “win.” A 14-year-old Manpreet Singh, a Class IX student in Mumbai,

Wordsmith University – Freelancer Business and Life school and Wordcon- Collaborative Platform for Indian Freelancers, commissioned a 4-part prose-work on a theme highly salacious for the vulgar horde but profoundly important for the thoughtful. Thoughtful about the contemporary Life and Times – for us and for our children. Our formal education, in most of the

[To ALL PIN codes of Calcutta] Transmission Starts *************************** Pritam B Wordsmith and Kaushik “Rainmaker” Bhattacharya deliberating on the eve of the Workshop tomorrow at BNCCI House “Best ways of Customer Engagement”, from 2:30 pm to 6:30 pm. The deliberations took place in a PIN code of Calcutta which can be termed as the “PIN

The Connection One may ask as what can be the connection between geopolitics and cyber security. The purpose of this post is to discover that connection and then from these premises try to set out the direction of this global theme of Cyber security in case of India. It is very unfortunate that India, in

I got the physical book in a busy office where there were lots of business activities. Just like you can hear the muffled sound of engine in any part of a ship, the office was having the purr of business being created, developed, pushed, closed and sometimes hanging in a limbo. The book is written

Wordsmith Team is editing two journals going to be published in July / 2017 Infoquest – 3rd Edition – is a Journal on Information Security Freespace – 2nd Edition – Freelancer’s Journal Last date of submission extended to 25th June 2017. Source: wordsmithofbengal.wordpress.com

A guest post from a full time entrepreneur. For non-Indian readers, EMI = Equal Monthly Installments. EMI in another way can be to be “addition to easy credit” where the barrier of affordability is instantly bridged and instant consumption happens. All EMIs are front-loaded with interest and is a legally enforced claim on the payer’s

What has happened? UK hospitals, Telefonica, FedEx, and other businesses were hit by a massive ransomware attack on last Friday (12-05-2017). Around 75,000 computers in 99 countries were affected by malware known as “WannaCry”, which encrypts a computer and demands a $300 ransom before unlocking it. The malware was able to spread thanks to flaws

[ Wordcon – Platform for Indian Freelancers received this work from a veteran who chose not to be identified. ] “In 1997, I was in Bangalore – a freshly minted B.Tech. At that time, the word was “software”. Later, it became IT. I started as a coder, then I became a TL, then Manager. Baas. Everybody

Off late, we are observing humongous problems in recruitment. Getting resources, make them work, retain them, get them motivated. Let it be start-up, larger organization, situations are same everywhere. In this blog I will try to search answers and retrospect the root cause. All cannot be written in single blog. Hence, I will try to

Fame per second and $ / sec are not necessarily correlated. I recently conducted an empirical survey and very interesting results followed. First, let me explain the methodology : A Fame quotient is created by checking social media followers, likes and visibility in online media. For off-line visibility/fame there is no quantitative measure available. I

Last week, I met a journalist with experience of 15 years just after I returned to Calcutta from Silchar. He was until two months back an employee of ABP / TT, the largest media group of Bengal and one of the largest of the country. Not anymore. Two months back, he “resigned”, so the story went in

Though I always regretted for not being born in a great city, this is partly compensated by Providence as I was born in a house which is very close to a river – the Barak. The good fortune appeared to be part of my horoscope as I continued living near rivers continuously for last twenty years

Foreword : The post is indebted to a very detailed analysis on the present market situation presented by Mr. Sushobhan Mukherjee, Chairman, Infoconglobal here : https://sushobhanm.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/market-mystery/] As a small town boy of Greater Bengal, I always liked punting, rowing and fishing. In my personal opinion, fishing is one of the best ways to mix purpose, leisure,

[The Review is the work of three generations of the Bhattacharyya family of Purbasha, Silchar. The grandfather Mr. Pranab Bhattacharyya has written the review, the son has edited and the grandson has typed and formatted the text. The book was presented to the Reviewer by Ms. Bhattacharyya, Masters in History, summa cum laude, University of

After Reliance JIO launch on October 2016, the entire telecom market in India is under some kind of turbulence. JIO had worked silently over last 3years to lay fibers even in remotest part of the country and using the gigabyte last mile capacity, introduced voice over data (volte). Not only that , they had introduced

The strobe-lights, camera flashes and the halo around “celebrity artists” blind us to look deeper into a musician / artist’s life as a sentinent being. Once the Age of monarchs and kings gave way to “mass people” as the arbiter of music in democracies, court musicians became extinct. In other words, musicians were freelancers and

One cannot argue with accidents. So with Fate. The accident that had taken away Kalikaprasad of Dohar from us and his family cannot be argued with. We can only try to feel the depth of sorrow for the immediate family members. However,his music and achievement will live on and will inspire someone in some city,

One way I find myself to be extremely fortunate. I had eight years of employee-career and in this period, I got two bosses and both were extra-ordinary. I would have continued as an employee but Providence had other plans and I retired as an employee at a ripe old age of 29 years. This is

Wordcon 2017, 2nd International Freelancer’s Conference was concluded last week on 9th February, 2017 (Thursday). Our sincere thanks all delegates, speakers, panelists, media, partners, sponsors, volunteers to make Wordcon 2017 a grand success. Wordcon aspires to build a collaborative platform of freelancers from various specialties, this very event is a fruit of collaboration of many

Customer: “Do you do ERP?” Vendor : “Yes Sir, we have in house developed ERP both client server based and Web Based, but we have tie-ups with SAP, Microsoft dynamics and if budget is a constraint we can give you Tally as well” Customer: “Wow, you have a platter of ERP solutions, how many people you

Business Communication without a purpose and practice is complicated nonsense, nothing else. It is sad but it is true. I have met at least 2000+ businesses in various meet, conferences, conclaves, exhibitions, trade shows and all the visiting cards combined will make a make-shift pillow. I am not mentioning the multi-paged and multi-folding brochures which

Wordsmith’s Statutory Disclaimer on Review : Wordsmith Review process is open, simple and unconventional. Chief Editor reads the book and expresses his first hand reaction and background thoughts as clearly as possible. This is in stark contrast to the mainstream review which starts with a ponderous solemnity, then a complicated attempt to express the reviewer’s

On 9th February, we are organizing Wordcon 2017 – 2nd International Freelancer’s Summit in Calcutta, India. As a Chairman of the initiative, I was working with my team in terms of connecting with potential associates locally, in India and abroad. The core objective of Wordcon is to connect Indian freelancers to the global community and share

It is the easiest of times for Physics. You have the largest collider, you have huge army of physicists, mathematicians, engineers, computer people, data scientists, PR machine, model like writers and media reporters, fantastic wordsmiths (God’s Particle) and 2500 years of work behind of some of the greatest minds and brains our genes are capable of

Review Context In 1991 (Collapse of the Soviet Union), I was a hormone driven 17 year old heterogeneous male. In 2008 (Credit Crisis), I was thinking of putting my leisure into some channel. In the seventeen years from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the near collapse of World financial system, one thing in

Position Statement con Self declaration [I am restless in a sense that I find it very difficult to sit in front of a lit-up screen in a semi-dark hall with strangers or acquaintances for 160 mins or sometimes for 180 mins. This makes me disqualified for being a gentle movie watcher. This does not mean that

As our monies, ideas, emotions flow through the digital infrastructure, our money (Money is the top trending item in India nowadays – black, white, banked, un-banked, cash, digital and so on) is essentially data. Britons found out an equation no less profound that E= mc*c that time is money. Today, time is not only money

Winter in Kolkata has different flairs like charming weather, sweets prepared from “Nolen Gur”, Circus, Picnic, Hopping between Zoo-Museum-Science City-Nicco Park, Different Fairs-Exhibitions-Summits. With the emerging problems of Global Warming, Kolkata is not far behind to experience diminishing winter along with other fading glories. The charms of life, spirits of soulmates, passion of humanities are

[Disclaimer of Co-incidence : We have been working on organizing a Conference on Information Security for last one month. The Conference called Infocon was going to be held on 18th November at CII-Suresh Neotial Hall of Excellence. I have been editing a journal called Infoquest and was royally rewarded by getting some “expert” knowledge from a

Cashless Society (just like paperless society) is a recent construct. But money or medium of exchange is very ancient. In other words, money circulation is as ancient as civilization itself, even in those societies where “paper” was a curiosity. We can easily trace 3000 – 4000 years back. In the week following (8th to 16th

For last 25 years or so in human history, internet users have accepted something as part of life : we share our privacy in return of digital citizenship. This is not new. We have been providing data about ourselves to many institutions including Government all through our lives. Notables : school, educational institution, hospital, court,

Modern cryptographic algorithms, for example RSA cannot be broken, in theory, within a reasonable amount of time using a brute force method. To know why, please peruse – Pure mathematics and poetry. Then, how is a security breached which is practically unbreakable ? Human strengths and human weakness combined and they cannot be separated.

Why do some people try to breach security of information infrastructure ? Extremely talented, sometimes their works (when nabbed) show signs of genius but most of the time, their core objective all too mundane : money, fame, revenge or simply the ego of any criminal – “I cannot be caught.” We must understand that machines

I woke up a week back in Calcutta and the newspaper screamed that a gentleman found his bank account withdrawn some INR 80,000 (USD 1375) – from an ATM in China ! To be shocked is understatement. The cybercrime cell of the local police got reports from many such incidents. I went to the ATM

[Red herring disclosure to my readers – manifest, absentee, not manifested yet ] I was a Tata employee from 2002-2004. I do not hold any Tata stock. The Sherlock Holmes report means that I have read most of the major mainstream and alternative media reports on the issue in a way Mr. Holmes used to

Entire India is into turbulence with the latest banking fraud. All print media, news channels, internet are discussing on the same topic and some kind of panic situations are spreading across. Security breaches are very common; but this time something ‘Worst’ has happened. Yes, this biggest financial data breach has affected 32 lakh debit cards.

This is our second review of a book by the same author. The first review is here for the book entitled JUNGLEZEN SHERU and we strongly request our readers to read as our basic methodology of book review is presented there. This book is titled CARVING A SKY – A Perspective on Life. The book

There are four fundamental types of risk in the order of our vulnerability I. Known Known – We know what are the risks and how we are placed relative to that risk. (For example – exposure to cold air in early November air in Kolkata, the time of change of seasons. This is the time,

How much information security is enough security ? Infocon is an initiative by Prime Infoserv, Kolkata and Wordsmith has been a collaborator in the initiative. Any contemporary CXO who is not concerned with the theme and confusion called Information Security is either non-existent or soon will face bankruptcy judge. Billions are lost by private and

All empires instinctively felt, studied, built strategy around geopolitical realities and grew. They also fell when imperial ambitions overshot the limits imposed by geopolitical reality. I start with empires because all our democracies are relatively recent phenomenon of history. It is also becoming clearer that from the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991) to the Credit

In my last vacation, I was working on a project of translation. I was translating selected parts into English from the writings from at least 70+ man and woman of letters of Bengali language. A friend of mine, a successful man by today’s standard asked : “Who shall read these old writings ?”. He is

This post will discuss an universal phenomenon discovered around 1960, called Mid Life Crisis by psychologists. I would rather term it as Mid Life passage. The post is written by a 40+ man, presumably in the thick of it. In 1960s, economists or psychologists studying human happiness or well-being were considered very strange or “alchemists

[Formalized discussion with my son, a student of class VI – a victim of maths teaching in contemporary schools ] Pure mathematics and poetry, in vulgar eyes appear to be useless. People who are exact solutions to “cost-benefit analysis equation” in the most rigorous manner will definitely think so. Pure mathematicians and poet – these

I had discovered, while teaching my son, a student of Class VI the pathetic lack of rigour in teaching mathematics and algebra in contemporary schools. I could not blame my son for his outright conclusion : “these formulas and notation are manufactured to torment my souls.”. To support his theory, he told me a story

I. Everyone understands that in the conveyor belt of ever increasing trivialities, no one will remember anything in the digital superhighway. Still, the effort continues. This reminds of a mythical king answering the question : What is the greatest wonder of the world ? Even though everyone finds that death is everywhere, still everyone has

Sisyphus is a character of the Greek mythology – a fantastic device that connects the affairs of the topmost elite with the mere mortals which include our elites. Sisyphus is a cursed man : he was asked to carry a stone to the mountain top and as soon as he reaches the top, at a

[Inspired by reading of Oswald Spengler’s Der Untergang des Abendlandes – Decline of the West, published in 1918. A seminal and controversial work – the work contains a memorable paragraph on how a megalopolis looks like and how does it evolve and then with a saturnine frenzy, devours its own children.] The observers of human heart –

Last week, Lionel Messi declared his retirement, post the defeat of Argentina in the centenary Copa America final against Chile. But why? He is only 29 years old and have at least 7-10 years to try his level best to win a trophy for the country. He won FIFA best player award for five times,

The most seminal work on Wealth was by a Scottish moral philosopher named Adam Smith entitled The Wealth of Nations. This post will analyse the Wealth in context of the majority citizens of the Wealth of the Cubicle Nation. For context, please read about the citizens of The Cubicle Nation The geographical context remains the major

“Cubicle Nation” has come to being quite recently where we could observe hundreds of people look at a CRT or plasma screen for 10-12 hours a day for work and earning their living. Since all products and services are nowadays powered by cubicle nation in some form of the other, this post is relevant for

This is the most ambitious post and is particularly useful for our “analytically loaded”, “measurement fanatic” and distracted world. I am answering in brief paragraphs, rather in expanded bullet points, the question : is there and if it it is, what is the wisdom of literature ? Multiple Lives : Literature is the only authentic device

Any student of physics or chemistry cannot avoid Ludwig Boltzmann. His contribution is such profound and wide at the same time. We would not have featured him in this series had he been only a brilliant scientist. He shares something striking with another genius of Europe and of humanity – Blaise Pascal . Boltzmann was also

Introduction: Vacation is one of the rare phenomenon in a so-called busy lifeline. And the same is more prevailing in an entrepreneurial life. Life has become more stressful, complicated. We hardly have any time for self, family and children due to “always connected” life style. The medicine to have de-stressed is definitely a break from

Mr. KT* has recently turned in his mid-forties and he has been a taraaqi man through and through. Born in a small town, he had achieved a lot – academically, professionally, economically and socially. A biographer (a contemporary media man of India) of him will describe him as below: He was an adolescent when Indian economy was

Almost six years back – I had visited and recorded my visit in North Tripura Hills which provided my soul with detoxification from urban anxiety and business pressure. I was six years younger in term of duration and it reminds me now of the shortness of youth and individual life itself. But there is something called

“On the Shortness of Life” is the title of an essay ; an essay written some two thousand years back by Seneca, a Spanish born Roman. The magnetic title itself is an indication of what is to come. The most-interesting thing is that we become really and positively aware of the “shortness of life” only

While one works in a company, especially in emerging / emergent variety as in India, the word vacation is absent – what one says is “leave”. I had worked almost a decade in the world of leave where no one went for “vacation”.Children grew up, started going to school and I had combined their “summer

Pascal lived from 1623 to 1662 in France and is a singularly unique figure in science, mathematics, physics, theology and literature. We studied his triangle in high school and his law on pressure in college but he offers us much more, especially in our heavily distracted, secular, democratic and “scientific” world. Scientific Temper Tempered : Had

Hegel remains a towering figure in European philosophy and human thought. A very long career-philosopher, father of many key concepts in philosophy and immensely influential in his time and beyond. In this post, we shall see few key ideas from this philosopher. Hegel on the year of his death. (Courtesy – Wikipedia) Segment Problem : Hegel

Dr. Carl Sagan would not have featured in this series, had he been only a brilliant scientist. There are many brilliant scientists who have undoubtedly enriched and extended their subjects but they belong more to their profession / area of specialization rather than to collective conscious or unconscious and to the pulsations of their historical

Plato is an important figure in human thought but he has something very important to offer to us. More that 2500 years ago, he wrote down issues and themes that remain extremely relevant for us. Plato lived in an age which was markedly different yet it had many ingredients of our times, in seed form.

It needed the whole industrial revolution to gather the insight that the beauty of our cities and the system of governance are intimately related and influence each other. I shall deal with this in a broader way in another post and will present 10 pre-conditions that seem to be generally applicable for all beautiful cities :

Democracy in America (written in 1831 and published in 1836) has been a seminal book in understanding not only democracy and America or democracy in America but a penetrating gaze into human situation with the precision of a surgeon and grace of a beautiful woman of late 18th century. Collected and paraphrased few below that helps explain

Fiver years back, we had started an online business school for freelance translators called Wordsmith University. Eventually, the school discussed on many themes not directly related to business. In these years, thanks to my life as a Li-Der (Life Designer) which means getting modest income, more valuable leisure and narrow and minor global fame, I was

Sunday morning is bit relaxed compared busy weekdays. During morning bazar, I met the Sweet Shop owner in his shop. His mood was terribly down. He was quiet upset and angry at the same time. Once I finished shopping Sweets, I waited for a while for the shop to be vacant. Once other customers left,

Introduction The civilization has always been interested on protection, let it be primitive or sophisticated present ages. Human Life or property or business, our thoughts revolves on safeguarding the same. With the advancement with technology, we are getting more engaged with internet and in effect data security is becoming more critical worldwide. Information security is

I am writing this post at the insistence of my friend Mr. Sushobhan Mukherjee when my journey to New York to Calcutta was finalized. A city like New York is like a global shadow – it touches a modern man’s life pretty early as he moves along. In my case, the shadow touched me when

Yesterday was the 10th edition of Bong Entrepreneurs formal Meetup named “Big Bong”. I had written earlier also on this on our third and fifth meetup as well. With the platform growing older (as already 9 months old), we are getting matured and quality of the events are getting improved as well. Always there is a question

During casual discussions with my friends, I always mention myself as a better doctor than that tribe in the present market. Why? No disrespect to the profession, rather a discomfort to the prevailing trends. Once you visit a doctor, what he/she used to do? In normal situation, your pressure is measured, your chest conditions are

Sufi Sutra ! I had attended the musical event organized by Banglanatak dot com. I know the organization for quite long time now and also it’s founder Mr.Amitabha Bhattacharjee. However, I am getting associated with their activities recently. I had been to akhra several times now and attended other concerts including “Bhalo Theko Nepal”. And

EPIC took birth this year and first instance “EPIC 2016” took place on 16th January, 2016. Introduction As per “google”, EPIC means “a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the past history of a nation”. In this case the event “EPIC”

“Hey hey hey” my friend was raising hands on the road. It was Monday afternoon in a rare winter season of Bengal. Both of us were heading for an audit (QMS, ISMS and ITSM) meeting on in one of the renowned government Enterprise. We were looking for a small auto ride instead of walking as in

23rd January is the birthday for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Today was his 120th Birthday. And fortunately or unfortunately I was present in front of Netaji Bhavan since very early morning. Netaji Bhavan was the place where he used to stay in Kolkata and he left for the last frontier from this house only. The

An executive summary of Dr. Hans-Juergen Nagel’s lecture on What is Music and its relevance for a society – Perspectives from Western musical tradition, organized by Wordsmith University on 12th December 2015 at AJ Block Community Hall, Salt Lake, Calcutta. Wordsmith University Founder-Teacher Pritam Bhattacharyya introducing the speaker The lecture was structured in a very novel

“Oh No, Not Again” ! Is it your reaction thinking one more negative article in my blog? . Hold on ! Your Patience is being tested for next few minutes. I have written several sections in previous days on the pain points of an entrepreneur, manpower issues, echo system negativity and so on. And few

Live life “King Size”. This statement is very well known and I am not here to suggest audience why/how to do it? Rather I will here take you through a life story of a person and I presume the self will be self-explanatory how he did it. It is about my father Late Gautam Kumar

Irony: 5th December, 2015. Yes it was my birthday. But it got ruined due to sudden death of my father-in-law. It was Saturday afternoon, he left us behind and approached for heaven. December is always horror month so far 2012 onwards. In 2012, lost my father in a sudden heart attack. My mother got neuro

Since the beginning of recorded history, two opposing thoughts regarding human progress are visible : Human progress is towards development, things are becoming better. Most of the scientists since Newton till date are more or less subscriber of this ‘faith’. Technically, this is called ‘telos‘. Engineers and technologists subscribe to this faith more unconsciously as

[ I acknowledge my thanks to many ex-cult members who kindly shared their experience but for obvious reasons remains anonymous ] After interacting with “entrepreneurs” ( those who do not call or do not like to call them petty or growing or established business owners, professionals, freelancers or by function – programmer, content writer, video

My friend and colleague Sushobhan records a meeting of 20+ entrepreneurs of Bengal with a vision to start a lasting and blooming association. Not the chandimantap variety but something noble. The land has long lost the idea of true nobility. However, without this sense of nobility, there is no culture or no civilization. ENTREPRENEURS DE

Our eldest son Priyam had attended a science camp in his school. I had asked him to write a summary of his experience in the science camp. He wrote the first draft and then we sat with this draft and aided by wiki and Google, he was introduced to the heritage of modern science. The

This is the concluding section of the auto-biographical post I have been commanded by my colleague and friend Mr. Sushobhan Mukerjee The first part of the series – Metropolitan Man, Muffsil, Train of Time covered a long stretch. This part covers the period which I call, The Hibernating Decade ———————————————————————————————- In 2002, I came to Calcutta

[This semi-autobiographical post was written at the insistence of Mr. Sushobhan Mukherjee. ] In September 1992, I left my home in South Assam, then a boy of 18 years,bound for a meet with Vasco-Da-Gamma’s landing beaches in Calicut, Kerala. It is exactly 500 years after the intrepid Portuguese sailor went in search of spices in the

Dilli ka laddu – literally a sweet from Delhi and a kind of mythical one. It is that laddu which is told to be as such that the person who has not tasted regrets and so does the person who has tasted. Many people consider marriage as dilli ka laddu ! But this can be

Today, I read in my newspaper that Mr. Ramlinga Raju, Satyam Computers Founder Chairman had been sentenced to 7 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of INR 5.5 crore. While working on a book on Business Ethics, I had the opportunity of studying the case. What struck me and generally goes unreported is that

The book is a 600 page guide and declares in the title page : 7 Simple steps to financial freedom. The book came to my reading lens after a friend of mine loaned me and praised the book, till half read. I was hesitant but the word ‘freedom’ pulled me to read the book. The purpose

A week back, while sitting in the TiE Conference in Calcutta, Mr. Suvrangshu Kar, Founder and CEO of http://www.erp2online.com mentioned about the book and I had the book read in the same evening. This 15 mins conversation proved to be the greatest takeaway for me for the 12 hour conference. I did not attend it

Winter in a predominantly tropical city like Calcutta restrict outdoor activities for me. So, I thought of narrating not a very typical day in my life. A wordsmith work is more like a craftsmen and a craftsman’s life does not vary much even if you go thousands of years back. A technician needs many tools

It is incredible but most of the people who work in a large corporation do not know how does a corporation work. TCS, a major Indian IT corporation has announced and went into ‘terminating’ employees. The matter has reached Court. Our mainstream media is busy with the news. Our task is not to join the

I meet many corporate workers in India and in their private conversation, I detect a sense of deep insecurity and powerlessness. They feel that even though they have many skills and competencies and proven as these are, any ‘optimization’, ‘restructuring’, ‘corporate mandate’ , ‘disruption’ will overrule these. This is fact and they know it. There

Last week, Wordsmith University conducted a TRADOS training for freelance translators. The training programme was successful because of the following reasons 1. We wanted the programme to be intimate, informal, relaxed and full of substance rather than distant, one-directional, formal and costly and more frills than value. Trados Training in progress 2. Our associate Prime

Almost a year back, I kept my appointment with my 40th year and as a mammalian trait, I developed an extra love for my tribe of 40-ish man of contemporary India. The love triggered in considering the current and future plight of 40+ professionals of Indian IT industry. My group means normal, decent professionals and

A Bengali business owner wrote a post and I suggest every one – jobseeker, recruiter, policy-maker, students read this very attentively and sometimes suppressing wonder, amazement and laughter. Mr. Sushobhan starts In my entrepreneurial journey I have seen several instances which are clueless. I have learned lot of stories from my fellow friends as well.

The greatest poet-wordsmith of Bengali language and one of the greatest poets of human civilization – Rabindranath Tagore traveled to Europe sometime in 1922. It was the period of the golden years of passenger shipping and he took the route via Red Sea with a port of call at Aden. His writings on the ship

A Cambridge researcher Dr. Shelldrake has written a book entitled The Science Delusion and among its many provocative concepts, one is a concept called morphic resonance. The weekend became very interesting while studying the concept and some thoughts below : Morphic resonance’s startling conclusion on memory is that our memory does not reside in our brain.

[Reworked from a 2011 post Shrine of an exiled scholar of Bengal and this re-work is inspired by a discourse with friend and colleague Mr. Sushovhan Mukherjee in a Calcutta terrace, overlooking the Neapolis of Calcutta (Rajarhat) in a magical evening, only made real by the telebhaja and chalu-chai – one of the very very few

We have been studying Big Data for sometime. The immediate result was toying with an idea resulting into a post : A synthetic study on Big Data and Vedic astrology. Later on, we read some of the best minds on the theme, attended couple of industry conferences in person as well as some tutorials in

Headstart organizes a very nice event called Startup Saturday where a startup can present about itself among an audience having more such start-ups. Wordsmith University will be presenting on next Saturday – 13th September in the Startup Saturday. Source: wordsmithofbengal.wordpress.com

Last weekend, I watched The Godfather I and II and here are some stray thoughts that came to me : What is Sherlock Holmes adventures for anyone having slightest inclination in the Art of Deduction and applying this for crime detection, so is the The Godfather Trilogy for anyone having an iota of interest in watching

All enterprise builders are business-man but all businessmen are not enterprise-builders. The difference is very subtle. A blog writer may be an enterprise-builder but a billion dollar corporation may be a mere business. So what is the distinction ? The overwhelming distinction is simply this : an enterprise builder has a philosophical foundation resting on

I met Ms Delight in a lone hostel room in Malabar some 20 years back. It still evokes a great sense of joy and hope. I did lose Ms. Delight in these years and then, suddenly re-discovered her in a book-shop. She was fresh and same-looking as ever and I instantly recognized her. I approached

Yours truly, the freelancer is collaborating with a senior professor to write a text-book on Business Ethics for Indian students. The idea came while the learned Professor brought my attention to the poor quality of textbooks (in most cases) that students are condemned to read. Here is the preface of that yet to be written

In the last post, I have told you the tier or job levels this architecture will create. I shall paste here and advise what are the skills you need for each segment Transformers : This will be the army. Thousands and Hundreds of thousands will be in this segment. They will simply transform data from unstructured

This chapter is the most important chapter for those who are interested to be near a Job Explosion site or having some benefit to be gathered from the explosion. Please refer to the post explaining the pyramid structure of jobs in case of Big Data. There are two kinds of people you should focus while looking (or

This is for P and S class of Wordsmith PSEL framework. Since all of you are having the necessary talent and temperament, please read below the profile of a man who can handle BIG DATA the way everyone (and every Government and Financier) wants you to do. His name is Microft (not Microsoft) Holmes. His younger

This segment – the L of PSEL framework is the most voluminous and also politically most sensitive. Democratic Governments everywhere is interested in this segment because of the relationship between vote and job creation. The challenge of every government is common now : how to create jobs which do not need much skills, do not need much

In the 3rd chapter, we have dealt with the issues related to the scientists and the craftsmen. Now we shall deal with the economists, group who are going to gather their and other people’s money with a compelling logic that the following will happen They are going to get more value in tomorrow than doing

We have closed the second chapter with a sense of hope. Now, we shall follow our PSEL framework and try to see how advanced alien civilizations handle big data. This will help us, especially the scientists (the S of the PSEL) of our framework. Let us examine one of the alien relic easily available to us :

In the first chapter, we have prepared a simple, brief and hence extremely useful framework called PSEL and it is now our objective to use common sense to understand Big Data. A human being is a bundle of senses – total 6. Five external and one internal. Five external organs are Sight Smell Touch Speech Taste

[ This post starts a series of works on the theme of BIG DATA intended for CEO-s and start-ups as well as future job seekers in this domain. Written by a baby-sitting CEO ] I have always followed Euclid while writing any guidebook. What Euclid does is to tell at the outset what he is

I have the good fortune of attending some presentations by people from Cisco, IBM, PwC, TCS Research Lab today in a Business Conference in Calcutta. The focus on the issue was how to harness the business opportunities arising out of these ‘strange’, ‘disruptive’, ‘fast-changing’ environment. If you are a lazy person but ironically stubborn

[This post owes its existence to our lead Portuguese translator who inspired us to write and think about a post – The Cosmic Government. He was talking about certain national Government on the verge of collapse during EU debt crisis] Mr. Mohit Auddy joined a large multi-national company in its Indian subsidiary. It was his

[This owes its existence to my friend Mr. Pradipta Chakraborty, a veteran of Indian IT, a much traveled man and who has given me, a home-bound ‘owl of the flat’ in East Calcutta a pair of highly observant eyes with a philosophical brain behind.] Mr. Hiranmoy was born in a suburb in Calcutta three years

The age of forty is a for a man ( a woman of similar age needs to add her own) is the most-profound point in a man’s life while you balance the parameter of prosperity and anxiety in the person’s life. If we survey human history for some thousand of years, we observe with regret

The last post happened to be on the day I turned 40. This is the longest hiatus for this blog and as monsoon is almost spent, there came a sudden surge to write again. A break, long or short for any blogger (or writer) does what long neglect does to a piece of land. The

In an Indian city, most of the ‘immigrants’ need to deal some way or other with an Instritution called Bank. This institution can be public and private in structure. This does not matter for this insider note. Most of the immigrants (in their 20-40) are connected with banks in the following way: a. Home Loan,

[This post is addressed to 20+ Indians as well as those non-Indians who will choose to live in an Indian city] I have lived, on and off ( 8 months on an average per year) for last twelve years in Calcutta and that makes 96 months – 24 months away from the magic figure of

As long as you are alive, you need to pay tax. As a matter of fact, in civilized mankind, you need to pay tax for cremation also – direct or in-direct. So, in life and in death, you cannot avoid taxation. Tax and Death are verily the only sureties in life. For last decade and

My friend Chintamani was born and grew in a 10X8 room in one of those dated and fragile houses near College Street. In this room, he studied, slept, read and introduced me to a Bengali magazine called Dafa 302 and also to Kalika – the televaja institution in Surya Sen Street which I consider as

Wordsmith friend, confidante and colleauge for three decades Pradipta Chakraborty, a veteran in Global IT consulting practice with TCS has published a research paper in Cutter IT Journal entitled Skill Portfolio Management:: Future-Proofing Your Competitive Advantage and is available here http://www.cutter.com/itjournal/fulltext/2014/03/itj1403e.html The paper’s titlle has all winged-words and each ‘keyword’ opens vistas which are fast changing. Skill, Skill-Mix

My friend Sushovan is an enterprise builder and he has achieved one of the rarest things in India : to build, run and continue to grow a SME level business enterprise in Calcutta. Leaving a secure, cushy and generally stale corporate job while being a Bengali gentleman and a man of Calcutta (which discovered the

It is the end of March and very taxpayer is busy and so are the tax-collectors. As our work’s span is increasing so there are arising situations and issues which need global tax framework. Very sharp minds are at work to resolve and make the framework. Tax and Death are the only sureties of life.

We use work in a loose sense. I think some clarity is needed. This clarity illuminates the whole process. The attempt below : Labour :Labour is the unconscious work. There are so much labouring in the world by human beings. Most labour goes in fulfilling four aspects : eating (food, fast-food, junk-food, haute cuisine, gourmet),

First law of thermodynamics There is no business engine which can be designed which will run in 100% efficiency, i.e. it will be able to translate the input (time, money, work, expertise) into 100% desirable input. There is no work or vocation or professional that can do that, ever. The conclusion is that : there

A true freelancer is an employee of the cosmic and eternal government. How ? Observe a bee foraging in the forest. Or a tiger in the wild. Nature has designed things such a way that one of the most powerful animals – a tiger does not catch a prey everyday. Hence, it needs to store

(The post is slightly reworked from the original post written in 2010) While I was a corporate cog, I was forced to live in a city. My income and location were tightly coupled. I was more or less bound to my ‘office’ like a serf in middle age was bound to his manor house. As

I was fortunate that I had read Sherlock Holmes while I was a boy. It has been one of the pleasant memories of my childhood other than having a very quiant life in small town of North East India. I became a freelancer on my late twenties after eight years of working for a corporation.

The more I read about Big Data from true thinkers, mercenaries, 90-degree visual writers, meaning-challenged data-coolies, I find a faint voice inside me telling me : ‘Simply, simplify’. What is the destiny of a business ? It has actually 6 destinies only based on its inception charcater Birth (start-up) – an individual or a group

In more brutal times of history, an empire wanted to make everyone living as the subject of the empire like Dropbox founder reportedly saying about his product in wired : the product is needed by everyone having a pulse (wired stood corrected at the end of the article of wrongly telling the quote as being

In 2008, celebrated editor and excellent prose-writer Chris Anderson wrote a provocative piece in Wired magazine with a more provocative title : The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete. The article needs careful study because Mr. Anderson is a very knowledgeable man and he has enormous experience in the domain he

I presented this post in the form of a webinar in Wordsmith University last year entitled : Freelancer’s Feast and Famine cycle.The webinar effectively dealt with the problem of cyclic variation of freelancer’s income and ways and means to predict or understand the ‘trending’ of it. Recently, Mr. Sushovan Mukherjee, CEO and co-founder of Prime Infoserv LLP gave me a

One of the ways to overcome any temptation is to analyse it. I have been interacting with many small business owners and I got tempted. I define temptation in the context as this : ‘…mentally speculating a business future and getting anxious or depressed after the exercise.’ 1. Growth : All growth-worshippers are somewhat impersonalist

A business associate with whom I have been running a non-profit consisting of boring projects for last ten years (see footnote) wanted to start a new venture – an e-commerce venture. The venture is to sell astrological gems online.The nature of the venture is not important. What I found important is how the ‘advisory’ can

Mr. Biswas, aged 75, a retired Central Govt professional lives in Salt Lake,Calcutta. Life has been kind to him and he had an unblemished professional career, a very successful son ( IIT – Harvard and now a top executive in a highly respected Research organization), daughter married and lives in Canada. He has his pension

I had this thought while I was thinking of ‘freedom’ in various forms of Government. I have found out that in any form of government of any age of any geography, citizens have to face 2 issues on which they have no control whatsoever. There is no single exception. I think this is summarized by

Business in its fundamental essence like birth, death, disease and old age is gender-blind. Consider a hundred years back a young and fertile woman knew that Nature has given her a short window – at most peak 6-7 years when she can prove irresistible if she takes proper steps. What are the steps ? Remaining

I was watching Ancient Alien series in History Channel and one commentator proposed that instead of a flying saucer flying into a lake, it is equally possible that the saucer was in an underwater silo and tool flight from below. If we edit the take-off part, one is naturally led to believe that the saucer

( Reproduced from the Plain Living High Thinking Blog of Wordschimdt Eastradamus) Me and my 10 year old son had spent a month or more in our East Calcutta habitat with other family members enjoying North East’s calm and quiet. Father and son spent lots of time watching the recent Ancient Alien series in History

I generally do not write posts like this. I distrust and squirm at the start of a post like ‘How to’. I am making an exception because of a series of intersected events today in a bank. The events happened in a duration of 5 mins. A banker of some eight years experience, based in

Mr. Samayraj is a VP of a global multinational and is a globe-trotting business executive. Other than his work, his main concern now is health – especially twin diseases : heart attack and diabetes. He had none but he is gaining weight. He is married with a son and a daughter and lives in a

Last month, I went to a small town in North East India and stayed there and in the vicinity for two weeks before returning to Calcutta Anonymous. The place provided me the opportunity to interact informally with a dozen young men and women in the age group of 19-23 years and these informal talks made

The period of 1870 – 1920 – some five decades have been a period of great creative output and historical ferment for Greater Bengal. I have tried to tell this story in a book I wrote spanning a decade entitled An Intimate History of Bengal. The interview is re-mastered for current audience. In a landed gentry

This is a broad term and I shall restrict this into manageable proportion by three metrics Time spent in work (TW) Time spent in leisure (TL) Time spent to start work and leisure. For example, commuting to office or driving time to the pleasure resort. (TI or Time Intermediate) Recent travels of mine in few

Discovery of the second law of thermodynamics was a profound insight into the way material nature works. The law seems to guide interaction between atoms to the formation and working of galaxies. Broadly speaking, the law tells us in which direction a material process will naturally follow. Directivity is what we call future when the

NI-LS-TL is a factor, measured in time and like some universal constants, it is a comparison metric and has secrets inside. The secret gets unraveled while proper keys are used. NI-LSC-TL stands for No Income – Life Style Cost – Time Limit. I have deliberately made the factor complex because it is often seen that

Chatur is a mid-level MNC manager in India and gets a net cash (post tax and after all deductions) on an average of INR 1.2 million a year ($ 20,000) which comes INR 1 lac per month. He works pretty hard that comes around 70-80 hours a week. He is a married man with a

The beast called change stalks us all, even while we are in the most-secured zone. A drop in one quarter earning, some technological innovation, some fancy of a new CEO, negative publicity tagged eternally by Google and others, some political decision – your earning may be effected. If you are in a job, the situation

This autumn has been a great hiatus for the blog. The season also brought high degree of travel, high energy initiatives and also some major disappointments. This hiatus has given some distance and wasted time is never waste of time. We may waste very long time, actually some 30-40 years of one’s life in having

As a translator, here are 20 things I learn from the rise and crisis of Indian IT industry. 1. Heady, cash-heavy and un-thought of success should be feared more than great failures. 2. Do/build something which you can call absolutely your own. Say – a piece of software, a book, a video, which you can

Wordsmith University announces a free webinar on Blogging as a means for extra income at the least and minor world fame at the best for a freelance translator or any freelancer. Course Details and Registration here. On first come first serve basis. Source: wordsmithofbengal.wordpress.com

Dhruba RC, my neighbour announced the first anniversary of http://www.luckycompiler.com – an online anthology on art and photography. Having some experience in building such ventures and suffering the huge confusion, I can well understand what is told in the lines and beyond the lines when Dhruba writes When I set out to create Lucky Compiler, I

Dr. Aggarwal is owner of a small business and he was conferred a Doctorate by me under the powers vested upon me as the Founder of Wordsmith University – http://www.wordsmithuniversity.com. I asked Dr. Aggarwal – My dear Sir, can you kindly explain as why Rupee is weakening so much against dollar ? He not only

For last seven years, I have more professional interactions with freelancers than any other professional class. Yesterday, me and my friend Gobinda Roy had spent a day while Calcutta skies rained in abundance and we talked of scarcity – of jobs, of projects as economic bad news poured in. The best lacks conviction and worst

There are 3 types of recession and every recession can be classified into these categories 1. Permanent This type of recession is embedded and manifests sooner or later. Actually all growth is a recession in a sense because there are self-limiting parameters which will suppress any growth. In Nature, there is no divergent growth. There

Wordsmith Book of Business – my first book on business was written as a diary. It was more like a serialised event log and later it got threaded into a 53 page word-book. In hindsight, it appears to be a business auto-biography. Wordsmith Book of Business, 2009 Source: wordsmithofbengal.wordpress.com

Are you frustrated for being un-recognized for excellent work done ? The immediate cause : examiner, readers, boss, customer, spouse, children ? Having a a deep heartburn ? Rx Wisdom and understanding things in as broad as dimension is the lasting way to overcome this type of frustration. In all spiritual traditions, adepts are asked

Indian IT industry like yoga touches directly or indirectly quite a significant proportion of mankind. Hence it is befitting that we discuss this challenge here – in plain English and not in corporate speak which you can find in million other places. The word thermodynamic connotes the first 3 laws of thermodynamics. The first law

Last May, I met few young freelancers in New York who convinced me that a freelancer should shut himself in a room for a week and read all the classical literature on Courtship, Gaming, Dating and should read the bio-graphies of Richard Burton, Casanova and such great players of history. Let us see the Art

Intense but brief : A cricketer, an athlete. A cricketer typically makes his debut at 20s, reaches peak around 25/26 and retires around 32/33. The actual period is very brief – a decade at the most. Low-intensity but longer : 99% of corporate employees Low-intensity to the extent of highly boring but very long :

My two year old son’s sonic apparatus and linguistic capabilities are in beta testing level and hence there happens some curious events. Once, while the two year was making some ‘noise’, his elder brother, a tenner commented ‘Even my father company cannot make out what this fellow is saying.’ Father’s company here is Wordsmith Communication –

A week back, our Bengali team received a 12,00 words translation to be reviewed. The client said that they were going to do DTP and we need to hurry. There were some 15 files and we opened them. What did we see ? We found application of an innovation / idea that revolution telecom and

Last week, due to weather or due to increased restlessness of my two year old son or due to some fruits I don’t know I was suffering from a mild form of depression and anxiety. I was doing my routines but somehow was not feeling well. A relative visited me and I confided that I

I have a very little presence in the social network and I am not in most of them. I feel envious of people who claim a friend network running into thousands. Are they friends or click-a-stand ? In 2008, we had some cash flow problem. This happened due to some clients paying later with prior

1. There will be always more freelancers than jobs. Unless you are specialized on something like – 7-dimensional tensor analysis 2. An employee will always prefer status-quo to excellence. Excellence is disturbing, status-quo is comforting. 3. The exchanges (where freelancers and clients meet/intermediation) will be always biased towards the clients who provide jobs into the

The below story was heard by me from an insider : Somewhere in 2000, a very charismatic Indian businessman was in a party and some portly lady asked the flamboyant businessman – ‘What is your business ?’, the businessman replied : ‘I make, distribute, label, brand and market booze.’ The lady’s pupil and lips did

No one can define what is health. The medical science tried to counteract or remove the symptoms presence of which can be called as ‘not in good health‘. Here are some pointers to use freelancing to improve your health : 1. Anti-obesity Like Cassius, a freelancer is lean and has got a hungry look because

I think there will be thousand places where you get tips to succeed. I would rather tell some 10 sure ways of failing in an online business. 1. Getting linearly inspired: Inspiration like real world works in a non-liear manner. Mr. Kashcarry has made a fortune by such and such business. I don’t see much

In case of a ball moving in air, the laws governing are action and reaction and Newton explained it. In case of an electron’s movement, the governing laws posit uncertainty and Heisenberg did not say action or reaction. In algebra, we call something x and after analysis, we find the X. In calculus, the same

From running three online businesses, my realization is this : Don’t try ! It is a sheer waste of time and valuable neural cycles. Then how to do an online business ? There is nothing called online business. It is business, simple business where there are the below components : 1. Product or service 2. Buyers 3.

Automation saves times, reaches more, needs less focus, saves cost, does not have any fear, does not become frustrated in being rejected and knows no boredom. It seems so alluring and so wonderful. Except a small problem. In Sales communication, in this world of incessant calls for selling, people are already bored. Email – one

Ignorance : The purest state of existence. Lower animals and small children. Consciousness is not fully developed. Completely unaware of many significant things and complete inability to see anything beyond the passing moment. Not capable of constructing chain of events of knowing the chain of action-reaction. Illusion : Consciousness is not steady. One it seems like a

There is no word called spousic – so I invented it now. The word means any relationship between consenting adults who live together – married, live-in, co-habitation, contractual, experimental – choose your like. The Post’s focus is not on the type of relationship but how true freelancing can improve all the relationships. I think this

I have observed many colleagues of mine who very politely but firmly refuse the so called urgent projects. I have also observed and sometimes suffered from misjudgement by colleagues who value the urgency but cannot match, causing much tension and heartburn at the last moment. Now why should a freelancer take an urgent job ?

I am convinced that many competent freelance translators don’t read as much as they should. By reading, I mean the purest form of reading – dis-interested reading. In times to come, the standard by which a freelancer will be judged and rewarded is going to change and either way, it will be a raised one.